Sean Buhagiar has been appointed artistic director of Teatru Malta, a new structure set up to facilitate the professionalisation of Maltese theatre.
Mr Buhagiar, 30, is also the artistic director of Notte Bianca and was deputy artistic director of Valletta 2018 until last February. He was appointed after an international call for candidates earlier this year.
The precise structure of Teatru Malta has yet to be concretely defined. As a “national theatre without walls”, its remit will be to create original theatrical works with contemporary relevance and greater experimentation in style, dramaturgy and technology.
It will do this through collaboration with creative professionals from Malta and abroad, new and existing theatre companies and local communities in Malta and Gozo.
Rather than being linked to a particular theatre, it is planned to make further use of a number of spaces currently lying dormant in towns and villages across the island.
Some 50 such theatres were recently mapped out in an audit commissioned by the Arts Council, the results of which will be published next month.
The government has allocated €170,000 in funding for the next year, with Teatru Malta expected to present its first artistic programme in 2018 as part of Valletta European Capital of Culture project.
“We need to create something unexpected,” Mr Buhagiar told the Times of Malta.
“We have to be alert, we have to be groundbreaking, and we have to collaborate with the theatre sector to have different artists producing for different audiences, rather than any single, limiting vision.”
Mr Buhagiar was widely considered a front-runner for the role among the theatre community, and his appointment follows a number of other positions he has held in the public cultural sector.
He had a close association with V18 artistic director Mario Philip Azzopardi, including in the private theatre company Staġun Teatru Malti, before a public falling-out this year.
Arts Council chairman Albert Marshall, however, rejected the suggestion that his appointment could be seen as keeping things ‘in the family’, stressing that Mr Buhagiar was selected on the merits of his application from a wide pool of candidates.
Citing the report of the selection committee, he said Mr Buhagiar had “presented an outstanding and inspirational plan which highlighted his artistic vision and practical knowledge of the sector”.
Toni Attard, director of strategy, added that Mr Buhagiar would help in engaging young people with the arts, and added that he would be working with a number of the other local candidates for the role.